


The Miseducation of Petra Solano

by thegirlwiththeironheart



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Denial of Feelings, Lesbian Petra Solano, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 02:24:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12223818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththeironheart/pseuds/thegirlwiththeironheart
Summary: Petra does some late night, wine-induced soul searching, figures some things out, and has a minor crisis.





	The Miseducation of Petra Solano

**Author's Note:**

> I've been dying to basically list all the reasons Petra is a lesbian, so here they are, in fic form! Takes place sometime after the season three finale. I glossed over the cliffhangers there because obviously we don't know what's going to happen yet, and those aren't the focus of this fic anyway. Enjoy!!
> 
> Brief mention of the Pulse shooting so tw for gun violence.

Petra hated a lot of things. She hated incompetence, lateness, messes, the mothers at Ellie and Anna's school who treated her like some kind of a blonde bimbo, Jane's judgmental rants, Anezka's schemes, her mother--a _lot_ of things.

But most of all, Petra hated to look like a fool.

When she and Rafael broke it off for the final time--after she had settled things with Anezka, when all the dust from Luisa's coop had settled, when Rafael's finances had been dealt with--Petra let the nannies put Ellie and Anna to bed, put her phone on silent, and made herself a drink. Several drinks.

Despite everything else going on, one thing kept niggling at the back of her mind.

Why did she always drop everything for Rafael, when she knew she would just keep getting hurt? The second he said he still had feelings for her, she had all but leapt into his arms. She had done everything she could to hold together a marriage that made her miserable. She did horrible things that she knew would make Rafael hate her--like sleeping with his best friend, framing her for abuse, stealing his sperm--just to make him jealous, to tie him to her, to keep him interested, to keep his focus on her. It was as if she wanted to prove something, to be able to say "look at this wonderful, rich, handsome man who loves me." Yes, she had something to prove, but what? That she was lovable? That she was capable of passion? All that she had proved throughout their relationship was that she was willing to go to extremes.

And Chuck. The moment she had an excuse, any excuse, to leave him, she ran as if her life depended on it. She said it was his greasy fingers, his sabotage of the hotel, her sabotage of his hotel, his being a murder suspect. She said she couldn't see him the same way after he was questioned for his role in Scott's death, but that wasn't it, not really. She wanted someone to put her first (unlike Rafael, to whom she knew she would always be second to Jane) and Chuck tried to do that. So why wouldn't she let him? She went out of her way to win him back when she knew she had hurt him deeply (the veneer over the tooth she had knocked out was a painful reminder of that). She wouldn't have cared that she said those things about him if he hadn't overheard, because really, she cared about having him by whatever means necessary. When she told Rafael that she was having hate sex with him, it was the truth. Hate was the only emotion behind it. But in the end, her fear of embarrassment won out.

Yes, Petra hated being embarrassed, but if she was honest with herself, she knew, that embarrassment wasn't the only reason she didn't want to be seen with Chuck. 

Milos had charmed her, and she'd been wrong about him, oh, so wrong. Lachlan had only been a means to an end. Roman was a fling, someone to project her feelings on when Rafael was distant. Chuck filled her need to have an romantic and sexual attachment in her life--even if it was a secret, even if it was embarrassing, she had someone to present if she was pressed. And Rafael, despite their whole sad, sorry history--the little boy they'd lost, their beautiful little girls, every secret and lie and fight and moment of weakness--felt like a novel that had happened to someone else, some other person in another life. Petra had always put those feelings down to never being able to shake off Natalia, the street violinist. She was always afraid that if she looked too long in the mirror, Natalia would look back at her through some arbitrary flaw--an unplucked eyebrow, a hair out of place.

Maybe hate for Chuck wasn't the only thing driving her. Petra had hated herself for a long time. But why, now, still? She had turned her life around, pulled herself out of the cycle of abuse and crime that plagued her family. She turned the Marbella into a beautiful place. Her daughters loved her, and everyone loved her daughters. And  _yet._ She sighed, leaned back in her chair, tilted her head back. She tried to think back to a time when all her relationships weren't dysfunctional, and realizes there isn't one. There isn't a single relationship she hasn't deliberately tried to sabotage.

Why was she  _like_ this? She was mean on purpose, she made excuses for why her relationships failed. She kept them at arm's length but on a tight leash. Close enough to always want her, never close enough to stay. Why couldn't she just be  _normal,_ and just have a happy relationship with a  _normal_ person, someone who wasn't a crime lord or an evil twin or who hadn't accidentally had a baby with a random woman? Someone kind, someone who wouldn't get tired of her, who she didn't feel the need to keep up appearances with, someone she could just relax with. God, she wanted to just  _relax_ sometimes.

She absently tapped her phone, flicking through her emails, as if one of them held the answer to why she was so dysfunctional. Karate schedules for the twins, an invoice for the lounge, some files from Krishna--

 _Krishna._ Petra closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. She had been so  _embarrassed--_ she knew Krishna was gay, had known for years, had seen a picture of her and her girlfriend on her desk--Krishna had  _come out to her_ during her interview, for heaven's sake. Petra had parroted something about the Marbella's non-discrimination policy, and she'd meant it when she'd told her that any other employees who had a problem could take it up with Petra personally. She knew perfectly well that Krishna was gay. So  _why_ had she asked if she had a  _boyfriend?_

A slip of the tongue, maybe. Or maybe she just wanted to hear her say it.

Petra didn't have a problem with people being gay, or bisexual, or transgender, or any of the other letters in the acronym that always seemed to buzz in her ears when she heard it. She told herself she had no biases against that community--Miami had a huge LGBTQ community, and many of them frequented both the Marbella and the Fairwick. After the shooting in Orlando years ago, she had donated money to the families and to the memorial fund. She remembered hearing about the shooting on the morning news, and staring at the TV with her mouth open. A sick feeling had crept into her stomach, and she had promptly shut the TV off and pushed the emotion away. She put it down to empathy, horror at the massacre, nothing more. And there was Luisa, of course, who was very open about her same-sex escapades. Well, to Luisa, they were just escapades, weren't they, Petra mused. She didn't label them as anything, because they were just hers. Petra wondered what it would be like to have that kind of freedom, to just label things as she saw fit, to not worry...but wasn't there always a worry? Wasn't that the the _point_ of it all--the parades, the protests, the rainbow flags? The  _pride?_ Petra hadn't had pride in anything until she cultivated the Marbella out of virtually nothing, until she raised her twins when all reason said she wouldn't be able to. That was pride of a sort, wasn't it?

She unlocked her phone again, almost unaware of her own movements. Her well-manicured fingers typed out "pride" and after a moment, bright images loaded on her screen; after a brief look, she refined her search.

"Gay pride." She typed it out slowly, as if she might get caught. She scrolled through the images slowly, taking in the rainbow colors, the various color combinations of the flags, the glitter, the people dancing and kissing and holding hands in the streets, unashamed, unembarrassed.

And without any warning, Petra started to cry. The tears slid down her nose over her lips, which were pursed into a tight line to avoid any sobbing noises that might wake Ellie and Anna. Her phone slipped out of her hands and she put her forehead on the table, wrapping her arms around herself. That niggling thought in the back of her mind--it was a thought that had always been there, a quiet voice that had always pushed her to ask herself why she kept men at arms' length, why she never felt like she fit in the role of a wife, why she never felt like anyone could love her.

It wasn't that she was incapable of love, she realized, but that she didn't want to love _men._ She didn't want to be a man's wife. She didn't want a man to love her. Not really, not anymore. She didn't need them to anymore.

"I'm gay," she mouthed to herself, trying to get her lips used to the word. Her chest almost instantly felt lighter. "My God, I'm gay."

She sat up and caught a glimpse of herself in the glass window. Tears were still running down her face, her makeup was running, her hair was mussed, her clothes was wrinkled, and her lipstick was smeared. But she was smiling.

"I'm gay," she whispered to her reflection. Natalia seemed to look back at her for a single moment, and was gone. There was only Petra Solano, mother of two, hotel owner, _lesbian_. And maybe it was the alcohol, but Petra didn't see a damn thing wrong with that. Maybe in the morning, she would. In the morning, she definitely would. There would be logistics to think about, time for the word to soak into her consciousness, obsessing over how to tell Rafael, the twins, worrying about others' reactions--but there would be time for that. For right now, the tight line of her lips formed the words over and over silently, like a prayer of salvation.

Her shoulders shook with a lifetime of sobs, but they were suddenly tears of relief.


End file.
